


Finding the Force

by rinskiroo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Force Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi, Friendship, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prompt Fic, Self-Doubt, The Force, implied Damerey, implied Rey Kenobi, rebels influences, strict word counts, swtor influences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 7,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo
Summary: There's always been something different about Rey.  When she leaves Jakku, she discovers that her differences make her part of a wider galaxy.  It's confusing and strange, but the Force has found her and pushes her forward.May's Magical Minifics for the May 2018 /r/fanfiction subreddit prompts.





	1. Believe in Magic, or Not

There’s no such thing as magic.  No mystical energy field has any part in her life.  If it did, perhaps it could have conjured up a much better existence than starving on Jakku.  If she’s quick to catch herself before she falls, it’s good reflexes.  If she knows some sleemo is lying to try and get a better deal, it’s intuition.  If her gut tells her to avoid a particular area of the desert because pirates have decided to expand their claim, that’s just good business sense.

No such thing as magic.

“Please,”  she asks, one day when she couldn’t scavenge enough to afford a meal.  It’s been three days since she’s had even half a portion.  She can feel her stomach turning in on itself; she’s having trouble staying upright.

The man scoffs at her.  No one gives anything away for free on Jakku.

“ _Please_ ,”  she stresses again.  “Just one portion.  I’ll bring you four RN-47 injectors tomorrow.”

Rey doesn’t believe in magic, but the man’s expression changes.  His features, once angry and dismissive, turns blank and emotionless.  His hand stretches out and with it an entire, full portion.  “One portion.  Four RN-47 injectors tomorrow,”  he says.  He sounds robotic, like a droid.

She doesn’t question, just snatches the packet and races back to her overturned walker before he can change his mind.

In the belly of one of the many Star Destroyers that litter this planet, she finds a nearly intact data tray.  Rey knows that information could potentially be more valuable, but she doesn’t have the contacts for that sort of thing.  Working parts are an instant commodity— easily traded.  Parts equal food in her belly tonight.  But… she has an almost working datapad back in her walker.  She stuffs the data tray into her sack and hopes it’s maybe animated holo vids.

It’s not holo vids, not Imperial secrets, or even boring things like spreadsheets of personnel hours.  It’s stories of things that shouldn’t be possible, but are somehow the history of the galaxy.  It’s people with laser swords who can lift rocks with their mind, deflect blaster fire, or choke a man without ever touching him.

She still doesn’t believe in magic.  Tricks, illusions—they’re entertainment for the dimwitted.  Something like that would be used to separate her from the few things she’s managed to scrape together.

The Force, though, that’s not magic.  That’s real.


	2. Flying

There are things Rey keeps for herself.  A pilot’s helmet, a doll she’s fashioned out of bits she’d scavenged. She imagines herself on adventures with the rebel the helmet used to belong to.  Maybe one day she could be a real pilot.

She plays with a simulation, but it’s not the same.  There’s no thrill, or a million other feelings that must come with no longer being tied to the ground.

In her dreams, she soars, goes some place far beyond Jakku.  She sleeps, her fingers twitching like they’re around the controls.  She doesn’t notice she hovers above her mattress.


	3. Just an Ordinary Day, Or Is It?

Out to the crash site, load up what she can into her speeder.  Back to Niima Outpost again.  Her fingers scrub at the part until her joints ache and exchanges it for Plutt’s meager offering.  In her walker, she puts her things away, hydrates dinner, and marks off another day.

The ticks have slowly filled an entire side—white marks scratched into the powdery black paint.  One for each day alone, waiting.  Nothing distinguishable about them.  No holidays, no birthdays, no celebration.

Each day, same as the last.

Rey pauses as an odd sensation crawls across her skin.  There’s something different today—something wrong.  People are crying out, in pain, in fear.  It’s desperate and it weighs down on her because she can feel the hope that it is killing.  They were so close… to what, Rey doesn’t know, but she feels the loss.

The feeling fades, but the memory of it stays as she settles down outside to eat in the setting sun.  She hides in her pilot’s helmet and tries to push the bad feelings off into the stars.

It’s the beep and squeal and the sudden surge of necessity that convinces her today is not the same.


	4. Force. Gleam. Glacial. Sleep.

The droid, round and new, **gleams** at her and beeps happily at having been saved from being scrap and allowed to stay as company.  He’s very good company, he insists.

Rey’s not so sure about that—sounds a lot like trouble.  No way this droid belongs to anyone staying on Jakku for long, and they’re probably looking for BB-8 right now.  But maybe, if he’s been out there in a wider galaxy…

Time drags on **glacially** overnight as Rey forgoes **sleep** and keeps watch for looters or greedy Teedos.

“Beebee-ate,”  she asks, tentatively.  “Do you know anything about the **Force**?”


	5. Pulling it Out of a Hat

When the boy asks who’s going to fly, Rey bristles.  What—because she’s poor?  A desert urchin?  A _girl_ —as if that matters—he thinks she can’t fly?  It’s not like her only experience was taking old ships apart on the ground.  That the only time she leaves the sand is in a simulator cobbled together from many different dead ships.

Except…

“I can do this,”  she whispers to herself as her fingers find the correct keys for the start up sequence.

This junky old freighter hasn’t flown in years.  Actually, Rey thinks it came to Jakku hauled behind a scrapper.  Plutt put modifications in it, insisting this ship was going to make them credits one day, but planted on the ground it stayed.

Until…

A giggle erupts in her chest as the ship pulls away.  The subtle change in gravity and pressure made her insides flutter.  There’s a tickle in the back of her mind—like today the ship _chose_ to come back to life.

The strange boy who wandered the desert alone gives her an elated hug.  “How did you do that?!”

“I don’t know.”  Part simulated practice, and part—she glances around the mess—something else entirely.


	6. The Unexpected

“Don’t stare,”  _Han Solo_ tells her.

 _Millennium Falcon_.

A _green_ planet.

Today is not what she expected.

There are whispers in this place, different from the sounds of the desert.  They call her down the steps, through a door, to a box.  She thinks she shouldn’t listen, except she needs answers.  Why her?  Why now?

There are voices she thinks she should know.  Places she remembers, but has never been.  That wailing is her though, screaming for the ones who left.  He calls her name, the one she hasn’t met but knows.

She runs away with more questions than answers.


	7. A Mess & A Clean Up

In the messy concoction that is this sudden conflict currently warping her life, there are three distinct parts.  There’s her, Rey, orphaned and alone, the man, the monster, Kylo Ren, surrounded by his servants, and the Force.  It's ever present, and just within reach.  The two of them don’t blend, they’re adversaries, yet there’s this thread tied between them, somehow entwining them.  The Force pushes this bond onto them and makes them both confront things they do not wish to know.

There are parts of herself she doesn’t understand, but this man thinks he can help her.  She wants to know the answers, but she doesn’t want them from him.  The monster who burned Tuanul, slaughtered pilgrims, and took her prisoner.  She’s not the only one keeping things hidden—he loathes himself and knows he’ll never meet the expectations of the one he reveres.  But he puts on the facade of confidence and power—backs it up with brutal violence.

Rey isn’t sure what her plan entirely is as she creeps and climbs through this large, foreign place he’s brought her to.  She’s slipped her restraints and has a weapon—still doesn’t quite believe she pulled _that_ off.  She can’t wait to tell Finn, if she ever sees him again.  He’s probably on his way to the Outer Rim.  And BB-8—she wonders if he’s made his way back to the Resistance.

Rey realizes with some finality, no one is going to come for her.  She is in a mess of her own making—she should have ran from Kylo Ren instead of shooting at him.  Or gone with Finn, or tried to make it back to the _Falcon_ —a thousand other paths she should have taken that wouldn’t have ended up with her here.

She finds a computer panel and convinces it to give her a read-out of this place.  First of all, it’s a station, not a ship.  Secondly, the shuttle hangars are four levels up.  It’s almost a plan—half of a plan.  Maybe this Force thing will cut her a break and they won’t have tractor beams.

Up, up she climbs, as if she were back on Jakku, except there’s power running through these conduits.  She counts the corridors to the one where the shuttle bay is, stolen rifle at the ready.

Her heart stalls.  Her breath catches.

Chewie.

Han.

_Finn._

They came back.  For her.


	8. Folktale

With Han, Rey had felt a familiarity, a kinship.  There’s no memory of her parents, but she likes to think they were something like Han.  A bit rough and tumble, but soft with an easy smile.  Rey doesn’t think she’s ever known anyone like Leia.  She’s strong and vibrant.  Sad, but doesn’t let that define her actions.

Rey wants to stay here, with Leia and Finn.  She’s unsure about the rest of the Resistance, and what they’d think of a scavenger from Jakku, but she’s a good mechanic and a pilot.  There’s plenty she could do that would be helpful.

There’s something else that Leia wants from her, though.  That the Force wants as well.

“I can’t do it,”  she tells Leia quietly.  “I’m not a warrior or a hero.  I’m nobody.”  She twists the cylinder of metal in her fingers and holds it out to Leia.  “This should be yours, not mine.”

Leia glances down at the lightsaber, an amused smile forming on her lips.  She takes Rey’s hand and they sit down away from the bustle of people packing up.

“I knew a boy once,”  Leia starts, her tone motherly and reflective.  “He lost his birth parents, and then his adoptive parents, and then a man he thought the world of.  He wasn’t a warrior, or a hero, just a sad, lost boy.”

“What happened to him?”  Rey asks.

“He took that weapon and he toppled an Empire.”

Rey gives her incredulous frown and a sigh.  “I think there was a bit more to it than that.”

“Of course!”  Leia says, nearly laughing.  “There’s more to your story, too, Rey.  It starts with standing up and taking those first steps.”

 _First steps._   The man she’s never met but knows said that to her.  Is this what he meant?


	9. Broomstick. Wolfsbane. Argument. Epiphany.

_Fwap._

The **broomstick** slaps against the hut again.  Rey knows the stout little aliens don’t like her, but do they really have to interrupt the very little sleep she’s trying to get?

Her entire existence is one **argument** after the next—the great hero doesn’t want her here and the Force has seen fit to connect her to her most hated enemy.

 _Fwap._   Again.

“Okay, I’m up.”

When she leaves the hut, she sees what they’re doing—clearing away purple flowers from around the door and window.  **Wolfsbane**.  Poison.

 **Epiphany** strikes that perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to assume.


	10. Silence

Once, days would go by without Rey speaking.  Now, she’s had more conversations in the past few days than in her whole life.  Conversations that were hard, that were hopeful, and then broke her heart.

There’s one she wants to have more than anything.

She feels him—the faint flicker of a being who’s uniquely Finn.  Over the crest of the mountain, down the hill, trapped behind rock.

In her mind, she sees herself as a giant picking up pebbles.  They’re not so heavy.  When her eyes open, she sees them.  Awestruck.  Finn hugs her, and it’s all she needs.


	11. Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

Rey sits in the desert.  Except, it’s not her desert.  The sand is a different grain, the domed huts poking out of the ground don’t match the architecture she remembers, and there are two suns instead of one.

How awful, she thinks as she covers her eyes, to live in a desert with an extra sun.

A canteen appears in front of her suddenly, attached to an arm covered in flowing, tan vestments.  His head is covered, but she can see the reddish tint of the beard on his face.  “I didn’t expect to see you out here,”  he says.

“Where’s here?”

“My home,”  he replies with nearly a chuckle.  He helps her up and leads her to his round hut and she follows, because where else would she go.  “Mind the steps.”

Rey stops.  It’s the way he says it that triggers a memory.  She’s met him, somehow, somewhere.  Except she’s never been to this planet and has no idea who this man is.  “Who—?”

“Shh,”  he says,  “you’ll wake the baby.”

Unsure, but curious, Rey continues into the man’s home and towards the babe in the basket, twitching in her sleep.  It’s a little girl, Rey’s sure.  She has uneven, brown tufts of hair and freckles on her nose.  “Why are you here?”  Rey whispers.

“I look out for her while her parents are gone.”

“Is that often?”  she whispers again.  A tear escapes and slips down her cheek because she knows the answer to the question.

He’s pushed the cowl of his cloak down and she can see him smiling gently.  He’s younger than she thinks he should be, except for the eyes, but he’s warm and understanding.  There’s a strange familiarity with the mysterious sand hermit.

“The Force is with you, Rey.  Then, and now.  Always.”


	12. Book of Secrets

Ever since Ahch-To and Crait, Luke and the books, she’s seen things differently.  Life exists in two spaces: the physical, and the ethereal.  Bodies that can touch, and energies that entwine.  Rey sees, feels, exists, in both of these spaces, and she can cross them.  Manipulate the energies with her physical body, and allow her mind to transcend beyond it.

Finn, Poe, and BB-8 are amused by the mundane—lifting items and the way she’s easily fit into this ragtag group because now she can read people and their intentions with an ease she never felt before.

All of that seems petty compared to the truth of the texts.  Ancient Jedi didn’t just see the Force around them, but had sight that extended far beyond the present.  They saw possible futures, and alternate realities, where a past event could be changed to affect the present.  But the books are a collection of philosophies, not instruction manuals.

Rey isn’t sure if there is anything she would change, if at all possible.  To chance never meeting the wonderful people she’s met and grown to love—it’s a risk she doesn’t want to take.  She tries to look ahead, but only sees darkness.


	13. Special Flower

Rey glimpses a future.  More darkness, but now defined.  Rose is still injured and they’re low on supplies and on the run.  She won’t last, and Rey can’t stand the fear in Finn’s eyes.  Rey doesn’t know her, but knows her importance to Finn and Poe and the rest of the Resistance.

One of the texts is a book of healing.  Old alchemy and the strength of the Force.

On a dead world, she leads them.  The Force rushing around her is what leads her.  It calls out—here!  A purple and gold orchid growing in stone that promises vitality.


	14. Fantasy. Leap. Ground. Nice.

It hangs off a precipice, the orchid for Rose.  Precariously growing on the side of the grey and rocky cliff.  Those with her look doubtful—the idea that a flower could heal brain trauma was a **fantasy** , but Rey knows this flower grows in the Force.  Its name and story have been lost to time, but as soon as she feels its presence, she understands it.

Without thought, she **leaps**.  Her fingers grip the hard stone and she takes the stem carefully with her teeth.  She scales downward to the **ground**.

“ **Nice** ,”  Finn says, smiling when she hands him hope.


	15. It's a Magical Place

Rey knows that she is not Finn’s only friend, but with Rose healing, she occupies more of his time.  They’re introduced and Rey learns that she’s kind and friendly and feels a depth of care for Finn that Rey understands.  She is happy for them, but it’s lonely in her hero’s sphere.

They can’t stay in one place for long.  Always on the move.  Poe takes them to the place he calls home.

There’s something odd about Poe’s home.  It’s not that he’s got a hundred-year-old relic parked in his yard, or how his father keeps trying to feed her, or that there are specially built ramps for BB-8 to easily navigate the old cottage.  It’s calm, but laughter; it’s an incredible warmth, and yet lonely at the same time.

Poe’s hand finds hers, almost tentatively.  It’s calloused, but warm and tickles up her arm.  “I want to show you something,” he says.

Rey nods.  She’s had a few brief conversations with Poe, but there’s something intimidating about him.  He’s a hotshot X-Wing pilot, and she’s a girl who used to pretend with her old helmet and handmade doll.  He’s confident and proud while Rey doubts if she even deserves the weight that’s been thrust upon her.

“Luke and my mom rescued it.  Well, a sapling of it.”

The tree makes her gasp.  Its trunk is so wide, she could hug it and her fingers wouldn’t touch.  Its branches spread out into a canopy that blocks out the fierce Yavin sun.  And it glows, inexplicably.

“Thought that could get you to smile,” Poe says as he knocks her lightly on the shoulder.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers.

In the glow, she sees a thousand memories—happy and sad.  She sees the frailty of life, but also the permanence of the Force.


	16. Phoenix

It’s time to do something.  Time to stop running and always being on the defensive.  They’ve found allies, gathered resources—Poe’s even managed to scrounge up half a squadron of X-Wings.  There’s one thing they lack—that she lacks.

The books aren’t instruction manuals, there’s no step by step guide.  It’s a lot of existential nonsense about _feeling_ the components coming together.

But Poe’s tree, for being phosphorescent foliage, has a surprising amount of answers.  It shows her a cave buried in rubble.  Not here, but a world once thought lost.

Rey goes alone, but not alone.  An old friend is with her—the one with the ginger beard who called her name and apparently watched over her as an infant.  She still doesn’t know his name, but trusts his wisdom.

They stand in the red dust at the base of a fallen statue.  Once depicting a Jedi and standing hundreds of meters tall, it’s now broken and discarded, like the rest of Jedha.  In her hand are pieces, new and old.  She thinks it will make a lightsaber, if she can find a crystal to power it.

“Can there really be anything left here?” she asks.

 _Focus_ , he tells her.  _You will find what you need._

Rey rolls her eyes and thinks the sand hermit could stand to be a bit more explicit.

But…

She feels it—like the ripples of water spreading out from a pebble.  She turns and heads north, and she can feel him smile.

The earth has been churned up, blown out, and folded onto itself.  Things once long buried are closer to the surface.  In the cave of crimped and once submerged crust, the light catches her eye.  Physically, it’s dull and and a muted shade of amber, but its energy glows like a beacon.

_Yellow was once the color of our fiercest defenders.  Guardians of the Order itself._

It is likely fitting, prophetic even, but Rey just thinks it’s beautiful and sings her name.

“How does it work?”

_Focus.  Feel.  The Force will follow your guidance._

Rey emerges from the cave different, but still Rey.  Confident, maybe—working towards that, but a firmer grasp on purpose.

“What’s your name?” she finally asks her ethereal companion.

He smiles softly.  _I have had many names.  I_ _’m not sure you would like the one I chose for myself, but the Jedi once called me Obi-Wan._


	17. Who gave you what now?

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, Leia, it's all true!  He says his name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that he used to be a Jedi!”

“Well, I should have known.  Who else could convince you to run off to some obscure planet on your own?”

“He said he had many names, though.  And that I wouldn’t like one of them.  Why is that?”

“Obi-Wan was… my only hope.  Luke knew him by a different name.  My son… he disregarded where he came from.  Did he help you, then?”

“Yes—it’s yellow.  He says it’s the color of protectors.”

“It suits you, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue only prompts can eat me.


	18. Clever Girl

Lothal—a planet once under siege of the old Empire, prospered under the New Republic, left mercifully untouched by the First Order.  They can find refuge here.  For a little while.  This place has its own mythos of the Jedi and the Force.  Of a man and a boy who defied an occupation; who sacrificed themselves for the fate of this planet.

There’s more to the story, perhaps.  Rey hears whispers that out in the vast, empty plains the man still wanders.  Rey thinks he must be like her Obi-Wan and she sets out to find this mysterious Dume.

Often, she thinks she sees him—just in the corner of her vision, but when she turns her head, there’s nothing there.  Just tumbleweeds rolling past.  She hears howling on the wind, but never finds the source.  The Force is alive out here and tingling all her senses, but other than a few wild lothcats and lizards, she can’t find him.

“Please,”  she begs.  “I need to know more.”  Because she’s not ready—not sure if she’ll ever be ready.

These things don’t come to her when she asks—she has to seek them out.  She remembers the words of Luke and Leia and Obi-Wan: to open herself up, find the balance, know peace.

When she’s ready, there’s a wolf in front of her!  Massive and tall, stark white with grey markings on its face.

But… Her head tilts.

Juxtaposed in front of the wolf is a man—hair short and eyes cloudy.  She sees them separately, but knows they are the same.

“Is this how it always ends?”  she asks.  “In sacrifice?”

The man bows his head.  The wolf presses its forehead into her hand.

The Force howls and in unison, many voices lament that it is often the way.


	19. Crystal Ball

Rey wishes she could control her dreams, but even the vivid images of the island had not been in her grasp.

When Kylo Ren stalks into her dreams, she wants to hit him in the jaw, but her hands stay firmly at her sides.

They see each other, but not quite in the way that it was before.  She distrusts him; he fears her growing power.  Yes, it’s fear that she feels from him.  And rage.  And violence.  All desperately trying to mask grief and failure.

Once, she pitied him.  Now, she wishes her dreams would show her his downfall.


	20. Place of Legend

It’s dangerous to go to the center of the galaxy.  Too many eyes and ears when they should be discreet and gathering strength.  Poe and Finn are nervous to make this trip, but Rey has a man on the inside.

Though, she’s not sure how many more times she can stand hearing about how much Coruscant has changed since last time Obi-Wan was here.  The planet has thrown off much of the dark Imperial colors and stifling police presence, but it’s still overcrowded, steeped in classicism, and blanketed with sky traffic.

Her books have ancient Jedi knowledge, but there are thousands of years worth of learning lost that may still be buried in the bowels of the former Capital.  The temple that Obi-Wan knew had long since been leveled, but underneath it, thousands of levels below, are the ruins of an even older temple.  Below that, he tells her, the ruins of an ancient Sith temple.

“Why do they just keep building one on top of the other?”  she asks.

Poe and Finn look at each other, but they’ve gotten used to this and know she doesn’t expect them to answer.

It’s mostly crumbled stone and dust, but these once hallowed rooms try to speak to her.  There is no great archive, except ambient memory.  For thousands of years, Jedi learned here:  philosophy, politics, lightsaber movements.  Unlike her texts, this place is soaked in dogma and tradition.

It tells her to reject emotion, passion, and random chance.

Rey flinches away from the lesson.  It’s not what she wants to hear, not what she believes.  Obi-Wan offers no solace—this is what he was taught.  She’s not sure if he still believes it, or if he’s just showing her a different way.

“Emotion can be balance,”  Rey declares to the void.


	21. That's How the Force Works

One thing they did find on Coruscant that is useful is a lost planet.  The planet’s not on Coruscant, of course, but it is nearby.  The Force whispers to her about it in the ruins of this old temple.  Once, long ago, it was a monastery and school like this place.  Its name and location have been lost to time and war, but there may be answers there.

When Rey tells her friends the next place they’re headed, Poe is the one who looks frustrated and doubtful.  “We can’t keep running like this, Rey.  And to some place that you pulled out of thin air?”

He’s always been supportive, and enjoys their jaunts across the galaxy (when it yields supplies or information for the Resistance), but he’s wearing thin and she can see new strands of grey sprouting in his brown curls.  She can feel his anxiety and the growing dread that the First Order has had too much time to regroup.  He’s afraid they’re losing ground they’ll never be able to get back.

“That—that can’t be how the Force works.”

Rey quirks an eyebrow at him in amusement and holds back the sudden bubble of laughter.  He’s thrown up his hands in dramatic fashion, as if he’s also realized how silly it is to tell _her_ how the Force works.  Finn laughs for the both of them and drapes his arms around their shoulders as they head back to the ship.

As the _Falcon_ leaves the city-planet, Poe is still unconvinced of the existence of this lost Jedi planet.  He’s pulled up star charts and shipping routes; Chewie even found him a smuggler’s map to look at.

“This place where you think this planet is?  It’s too deep in the Core.  If it’s not there—”

“It’s there,”  Rey insists.

Poe sighs loudly.  “There aren’t any hyperlanes that go there.  Even if it is there, if we miss it, the gravity would crush us.”

“If you’re not up to flying us there, Poe, I’ll take that pilot’s seat back.”  She’s goading him and damn well knows it.  With satisfaction, she watches the way his brow furrows and his tongue darts out to lick his lips.  She’s thrown down the challenge and knows he’ll pick it straight up.

“Chewie, make sure we have enough fuel to do a hard burn if we need to escape the crushing gravity of the center of the galaxy.”  With more force than necessary, Poe flips the toggles and settles on the best guess of a course to find this missing planet.

Finn shakes his head at her as he heads out of the cockpit.  “Just had to question his flying ability, didn’t you?”

Rey smiles and squeezes his hand as he goes.  BB-8 bumps into her leg and beeps curiously.  She crouches down and gives him a good pat on the chassis.  “Good idea.  Go get strapped in.  It could get bumpy.”

“Could get a little tight, too,”  Poe adds sourly.

Rey’s still smiling when she takes the co-pilot’s chair.  Her fingers hover over the controls as she finds the point between stars to anchor herself.  She barely notices the sideways glance Poe’s giving her.  The reason she needs him to fly is _not_ because he’s the better pilot (because he isn’t), but she has to guide them a different way.

“Well,”  Poe says, resigned to whatever fate brings them,  “may the Force be with us.”

“It always is.”

The ship lurches with every drop into real space to course correct, and Rey can feel the _I told you so_ forming on Poe’s lips.  But thousands of years ago, billions of beings traveled these stars and found this world.  They call to her, guide her home.  She sees it in her mind—the green planet with specks of blue.  It has mountains and rivers and teems with life.  She wonders how such a place could have simply been lost.  The voices answer in a moan of despair: war.

Rey gasps as they make the final jump.  Poe gasps when they arrive.

There's no space traffic, no satellites—nothing but the blue-green orb is there to greet them.

“What is this place?”  Poe asks.

“Tython.”


	22. Vial. Salt. Brew. Ethereal.

They’re waiting for the scans of this new planet—toxins, carnivorous wildlife—when Rey finds Poe playing in the galley.  He has a set of oddly shaped **vials** and he’s filling them with a thick, brown substance.  She watches, quietly, curiously, as he adds a pinch of **salt** to each of the glass bottles and smiles with satisfaction.

“What are you **brewing**?”  she asks, startling him.

“It’s—uh—a sauce.  For food.  My dad says it’s like tasting the heavens.”  He looks embarrassed, but also eager.

“Can I try?”

She smiles as the flavor hits her tongue and agrees,  “ **Ethereal**.”


	23. Change Your Fate

Tython is full of ruins: temples, cities, once thriving communities.  There are some buildings and huts still partially intact, but the flora and fauna have taken over.  Their small crew separates out to explore and catalogue what they find—Poe takes BB-8 to try and wake up the databanks, Chewie and Finn set out to map the still-standing structures.  Rey feels a pull elsewhere, but she tells her companions not to worry.  As far as they know, this planet has been long uninhabited.

The ambient energy tells her this was once a school.  Young minds absorbing their lessons.  Others had been here, too.  Battles raged—the cold hand of death had draped over this landscape.

Following these echoes, her feet take an overgrown path up a steep hill, to a cave.  She moves the boulders blocking the way (a feat she’s gotten rather good at) and ventures forth, flare in hand.  There are scratches in the wall.  At first, Rey thinks they’re some form of art or language—and maybe they were originally—but then she sees the deep gouges obviously from a lightsaber.

Rey lifts her arm and follows the strikes, recreating the battle in her mind.  Her feet shuffle back until she nearly stumbles over a stone block shattered on the floor.  Perhaps long ago it was an alter of some sort, holding a sacred relic, but now it’s a broken slab.

 _You can_ _’t win, monster._

Rey hears the voice whisper along the current of the Force.  It’s forceful, and yet trembling.

 _I_ _’d rather die—_

The voice cuts off without finishing.  Whoever they once were, Rey knows they did die.  Perhaps they saved Tython for another day, or perhaps they lost.  But just like Dume, just like Obi-Wan, just like Luke—another martyred Jedi.

Rey knows that if ever the time came and their was a choice to be made—her or Finn, or Poe, or Leia and the Resistance, or the galaxy?  Without hesitation, she would give her life to spare them.

“There has to be another way—a better way,”  she tells the ghost-ridden cave.

The voices say nothing, but she can feel their resignation, the inevitability.

“Just because you couldn’t see it doesn’t mean I won’t.”  She’s defiant and resolute.  She’ll live to see the end of this war and the peace afterward.

Behind her, she feels the familiar glow of Obi-Wan’s smile.


	24. Dark of Night; Deep Woods

The sky is black, but it’s not night.  The sun has been stolen.  Its energy devoured to fuel a terrible weapon.  As Rey stands on the frosty ground amid the twisting trees, she knows this isn’t a physical space.  It’s a dream, a memory, an echo.

The weapon in her hand isn’t the same one from before.  This one is hers and without the baggage of the one forged by Anakin Skywalker.

Her nemesis stands before her—hands at his side, pale and thin.  She cannot muster up the empathy to pity him and his apparent failing health.  She knows what he’s gained in return for his sacrifice.  The darkness is like an oppressive smog that follows him and taints everything it touches.

“Stop running, Rey,”  he calls to her.  He tries to sound soft and inviting, but there is violence behind his words.

“You better hope I never stop running, Kylo,”  she taunts him.  Rey thinks about the day she’ll stop running; pictures it in her mind.  She hopes he can see it.  Her feet will plant right in front of him and she’ll ignite the saber in her hand.  The day she stops running will be the end.


	25. Can't Go Home

“Are you ready for this?”  Finn asks her.

How can anyone be ready to face evil?  To tangle with life and death?  She looks at him in his blue armor, rifle slung over his shoulder—bars marking him as a commander are painted onto his breastplate.  He looks far more ready than she feels.

For a moment, there’s a hot wind on her face and the blast of sand in the air, and she thinks of how far she’s come.  From alone in broken walker to surrounded by people she loves and cherishes.  Sometimes, she still thinks of herself as that lonely desert urchin, but she knows she’s a long way from Jakku.

Finn squeezes her into a hug, pulling her back into the ship’s hangar.  They tell each other to be careful and go their separate ways.

“Take care of him,”  she says, standing at the bottom of the _Falcon_ _’s_ ramp.

“This ship has some pretty specific opinions about pronouns,”  Poe says in a tone that conveys he has already been put in his place about such things.  Behind him, Chewie roars and Poe looks sheepish, realizing Rey’s talking to Chewie about him.

There share a smile and a private look that maybe, after all this is over, they can share something else besides their ships.  Poe and Chewie are taking the _Falcon_ to create a diversion so that Rey can fly his X-Wing straight into the heart of what’s left of the First Order.  The diversion is unlikely to work on who she’s after, but there’s discord in the ranks and the _Millennium Falcon_ is likely to attract some attention.

When Rey enters the fray, space is a labyrinth of ships flying and fighting far too close together.  It’s hard to tell who, if anyone, is winning.  She listens to fragments of comm chatter—Finn and Poe are still out there.  Rey holds onto that.

Her quarry is supposed to be on the command ship, but she feels the pull of his dark energy from the surface of moon they’re battling around.  She wonders if it’s a trick, but she’s come to far to go back now.  She’s ready to stop running and deliver the end she’s promised.

“Hello, Rey,”  his voice rumbles around her.

Her boots crunch against the dry, cracked ground.  Her fingers tighten around the metal cylinder.

She’s not ready.

But neither is he.


	26. The Crystal

It sings a song the first time she ignites it.  A chorus of voices with their lessons, expectations, and fears.

Her nemesis sneers at the yellow blade; she feels his anger and disappointment.  He craved the blue crystal of Skywalker, but helped shatter it in a petty grab for power.  Now, her blade hums, unwavering, while his crackles with instability.

Rey’s heart aches suddenly, for Han and Leia, and the boy they must have loved.

“We don’t have to do this.”  One last chance to avoid more death.

Blades clash—both know it was always going to come to this.


	27. Wand. Grimace. Kiss. Playful.

As the **wands** of light strike against each other, Rey refuses to **grimace** or show any sign that this isn’t going any way other than exactly the way she wants.

This isn’t a **playful** romp with toys.  At the end, one—or both—will be dead.  She can’t show weakness, and perhaps not even mercy.

Lunge.  Block.  Thrust.  Parry.

Rey’s composure breaks and she cries out as the blade **kisses** her flesh.  He snarls, but she retaliates quickly.

 _I will not die here._   The mantra repeats in her head.

Again, on even footing, but Rey can feel a change coming.


	28. Duck!

The wolf and man, Dume, watch over the final duel.  As does the forgotten Jedi of Tython and Obi-Wan.  Luke is there, too, though muted in the background.  She can feel his conflict—the love he has for his nephew, and yet the desire to see him fall.  In Dume, she can feel strength and resolve.  From the Jedi of Tython, fire and tenacity.  And Obi-Wan…

Rey blinks and nearly misses catching the next swing Kylo takes at her head.  She blocks it with her saber, but can feel the heat of the plasma far too close to her face.

From Obi-Wan, there is acceptance and responsibility.  There is a memory that is not her own: he’s standing in front of his former student and relinquishing control.  He accepts what fate deals him—doesn’t fight it.

“ _No_ ,”  Rey grunts through clenched teeth and throws Kylo back away from her.

He snarls again at her, as if the refusal was meant for him.

“We could have had it all, Rey.  This whole blasted galaxy.  It _needs_ us.  They’re just a bunch of animals, fighting over scraps, but we could have shown them all a better way!”

She barely hears his words, this man whom she thought she could know and understand.  She wanted to believe in him and that by saving him, she was fulfilling some purpose.  But he is a stranger full of lies, and she was never meant to save him.

The wolf snaps at him.  Maybe Kylo feels it as he jumps back, or maybe it’s Rey’s scream as she lunges at him.  There’s an inferno churning through her—her strikes are stronger, quicker, more precise.  The hands of the ancient battlemaster are guiding her.

Like before on the frozen forest of Starkiller, Rey again stands over Kylo Ren.  Breathing hard, saber in her hand.  The splitting ground had stopped her before, but now, it’s the General with his guns and soldiers.  Rey raises her weapon again, but knows she can’t take them all.

She takes a slow, even breath and counts how many shots she could deflect before they’d finally take her down.

“ **DUCK!** ”

Rey hits the ground before the word ever makes it to her ears.  As fire rains around her, the Force shrouds her.  It’s warm and safe, like what she imagines a parent’s embrace to be.  And familiar, as if she’s felt it before.


	29. In Dreams

“I’m sorry,”  a woman whispers, her voice dry and hoarse.

Rey feels the brush of calloused fingers across her face and her eyes open slowly.  She expects the burning smell of spent blasters or the roar of fighters, but there’s none.  Only the woman with grey streaks in her brown hair and sun-leathered skin.  A gentle breeze draws a scent to her—sour like sweat, but there’s something else…

There’s an ingrained memory that’s not part of the Force, that’s all her own, of being held close.  It causes tears to stream down her cheeks because it’s from a time before Jakku and Plutt, and they aren’t fully-formed memories, just feelings.  Imperfect, but she feels love.

“I lied,”  a small voice says from somewhere behind the woman.

Rey sits up sharply.  Cautiously, she gets to her feet and pushes the woman behind her.  Ben Solo is still tall, but thin and lanky.  He’s all knees and elbows hidden inside an over-sized brown robe.  His dark hair is long and hangs in front of his eyes.  When he pushes his hair back, Rey sees the eyes of a boy who seems to finally recognize he’s broken something invaluable.

“I was alone, and I wanted you to be alone with me.”

Rey realizes that they’re not alone.  The spirits that had been her companions along this journey—no longer shimmering images.  She sees Luke the same as on Ahch-to.  Obi-Wan as he must have looked—old and grey, but with a cheeky twinkle in his eye.  Caleb Dume, too, sans wolf.  And many others she can’t name.

“None of us are ever alone, Ben.”  Because even in the desert, Rey knew of the presence that was always inside her.

“I know.”  Ben hangs his head as Han and Leia emerge from the crowd.  They join Luke and all embrace the boy.

Rey turns back to the woman, realizing that in her triumph, she had fulfilled an unwelcome destiny.  “I don’t want this to be the end.”

Her mother looks up at Obi-Wan and smiles before both of them wrap their arms around her.  “Good,”  they whisper together.

 

Both of her hands are clasped in the grips of two different people.  They cry when she opens her eyes.  Finn kisses her on the cheek, and Poe on her hand.  It’s the part that comes after the end, and she’s there to see it.


	30. The Mundane

There’s a large remembrance later, for all that didn’t make it to the point past the end.  Rey’s not among them, and she is thankful for that, but mourns the missing.

For so long, the narrative has been of the mysterious “dark side.” “Sith” they were called, as if it was some foreign bogeyman that society had no control over.  Kylo Ren, Hux, Vader—they were all men who made choices.  Their fall into darkness was not predestined or beyond their control.

There will be others, but Rey knows there will always be good people willing to take a stand.


	31. Bonds

Rey settles on Yavin and is practically adopted by Poe’s father.  His son is still out there commanding star fleets and stabilizing the galaxy.  They share a battle-worn loneliness of friends who should be here, but aren’t.  Of young eyes who had seen too much horror.  Of a parent without a child and a girl who never knew hers.

Though resistant at first, when the young boy showed up and asked that she teach him, Rey couldn’t look into his eyes and tell him no.  More came and now it’s nearly large enough to call a school.  Rey doesn’t let them call it “Jedi Academy.”  Those words are too heavy and covered in scars.  It’s more a seminary—a collection of philosophies and learning about temperance, rather than strict ideals or old dogma.

Her non-physical visitors dwindle after a time.  Luke lingers as he was once a teacher and wants her to do better than he did.  Eventually, he too realizes that there are very few lessons left to teach his former student.  There is one spirit that still often finds her.  Perhaps it is because the bond they shared in life was so strong, or that he’s still seeking absolution.

“Why do you always show yourself as a boy?”  Rey asks as she sits cross-legged and serene under the Dameron’s Force tree.

Ben shrugs in his too-big robe, but it’s not an “I don’t know” shrug, it’s the sort of thing Rey often gets from her students when a topic makes them uncomfortable.  “I don’t like the man I was.”

Rey tries to return to quiet meditation.  They’ve had variations of this conversation a hundred times.  It usually ends with—

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me, Rey?”

She sighs.  Rey knows that Han, Leia, and Luke have all forgiven him in their own ways.  They exist together now, bonded in the energy of the Force.  But Rey didn’t know Ben.  She had only known Kylo.  Kylo had tortured her and her friends, murdered billions, manipulated her, destabilized the entire galaxy—all for his own ego.  Today, it is still too soon, the wounds still too raw.

“Ask me again another time,”  she answers him the same as she does every time he asks.

“Yeah, I was planning on that.”

Rey scrambles to her feet and flings herself at the source of the new, corporeal voice.  She wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder.  Her days are busy and her heart full with the care she has for her students, but when one of her dear friends comes home, Rey remembers the lonely feeling.

“Who’s visiting today?”  Poe asks quietly.

Rey winces against his shoulder and he must understand what that means because she can feel him sigh.  She reaches up and presses her fingers against his lips before he can snap out what she knows is coming.  He’ll tell Ben he’s done enough damage and to leave her alone, but Rey doesn’t want that.  As much as she can’t yet bring herself to forgive Kylo, she knows that Ben is desperately trying to heal.

“Come on,”  Rey says, taking his hand and dragging him away from the tree.  “The kids will be so excited to see you.”

And they are, of course, to hear tales about flying X-Wings and stopping the First Order.  They are less impressed with news of reinstatement of the Republic Constitution or the first Senate elections since the destruction of Hosnian Prime.  As the day winds down and the younger students return to their bunks, Rey can feel Poe’s question in the air.

“Come back with me, Rey,”  he’s nearly pleading.  “Finn’s almost always on Coruscant these days.”

Rey knows Poe and Finn feel the same void when one of their trio is missing.  They spent years living on top of each other, nearly dying together.  Even after all this time, being apart is strange and unsettling.  She smiles softly at him and plants her hand on his cheek.  He’ll tell her to relocate the school to the Capital; that they’ll build her a fresh, new Temple to teach in.  She wants nothing more than for the three of them to be together again, but knows what’s happening here is far more important.

“Come home, Poe,”  she counters.  “Bring Finn, and Rose, and anyone else who wants to live a quiet life.  Even Chewie’s settled down—parked the _Falcon_ next to the old Massassi Temple.”

Poe’s still got work to do, and they both know it, but the offer is there, out in the open.  For a moment, it feels like a stubborn impasse.  Then, Poe drapes his arm around her shoulders and hugs her in close.  “Winning’s tough, huh?”

Rey smiles.  “Better than the alternative.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This was a fun, but intense challenge to build a cohesive story out of prompts _and_ stick to the word counts! I haven't put the actual prompts up (mainly because I'm lazy), but if you want to see them, [they're here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/8g689p/mays_magical_minifics_daily_prompts_for_may_2018/)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://rinskiroo.tumblr.com/).


End file.
